Cannes Branded Content Lions sees Asia snare three Gold Lions: Two Gold Lions to Ace Saatchi & Saatchi Philippines and one Gold Lion to Proximity/Goodstein Beijing

It was a great night for Ace Saatchi & Saatchi Manila and Proximity/Goodstein Beijing in the Cannes Lions Branded Content category, awarded at the final night’s presentation on Saturday night in Cannes. Both agencies won Gold with Ace Saatchi & Saatchi walking away with two of them.

Ace Saatchi & Saatchi’s two Gold Lions were for their PLDT MYDSL “Screen-Age Love Story” in the Best Integrated Content and the Best use or integration of digital or social media categories.

The virtual meets reality love story was one of the biggest campaigns in the Philippines for last year. It started with an online branded content launch and a traditional media reveal seamlessly integrated through multiple-media channels all the way through the sustaining phase of the campaign. And the results speak for themselves – 1.5 million hits on YouTube in less than 5 weeks. Content reached about 6 million combined views resulting in P10 million in free media and w.o.m. during the campaign period. The branded content online and on air resulted in 62% awareness, the highest for any PLDT retail brand in recent history.

Proximity Beijing’s Gold Lion was a Volkswagen co-production between Proximity and creative company Goodstein Beijing. Creative direction and concept on the piece was via Goodstein, whose CD Georg Warga and producer Maureen Sherrard are pictured above right in Cannes with BBDO Proximity Chairman & CEO Chris Thomas (left). The Gold was in the best use or integration of user-generated content category for Volkswagen’s “The People’s Car Project” – an online platform that gave the Chinese people tools to create car ideas, vote for their favorite designs, and share content to their social networks.

After a two-year dialog with the People’s Car Project community, 30 million people submitted over 260,000 car ideas. As an epic conclusion to the project, VW had to take all these ideas and create one car.

Volkswagen’s Director of Design Simon Loasby mentored the students and oversaw the car-building process. Leaders from various creative fields also gave the students guidance: Fashion designer Vega Wang helped design the car interior, director Jia Zhangke included one team’s design in his short film, and Chinese pop idol Bibi Zhou became the voice of the People’s Car.

Other Asian winners in the Branded Content were a Silver Lion to Ogilvy & Mather Malaysia for Milo Cans “Twisted Football” (left); and a Bronze Lion to Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai for Peace One Day “One Day Ceasefire”.